Apparently Romney thinks it is time to make it clear that he is a moderate on abortion and contraception. This seems to me like a great way to gain 5 undecided votes and remind hundreds of thousands in swing states that there isn’t that much of a difference between the parties, so why bother showing up to vote?

ROMNEY: I’d just note that I don’t believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not. And I don’t believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care of not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives. And — and the — and the president’s statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong. (Source)

Asked whether insurers should be required to cover birth control, Romney said, “Well it’s a question as to, should you get a car painted, you know, red or blue. I mean you can decide which you’d like. People who want to have contraceptive health insurance can choose that in their policy. Those that don’t have — that choose not to can buy a policy with or without. It depends on the kind of policy you buy of course.” (Source)

There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda (Source)

I am very interested in whether this makes a difference to any of my pro-life/anti-HHS mandate friends. It does not make a difference to me, because I do not expect either candidate for president to actually be pro-life, and so I think it crucial to weigh the balance of all of their policies. But it leaves me bewildered by why my deeply pro-life friends are so very happy to vote for Romney.

11 thoughts on “Moderate Romney and Abortion”

I’ve tried to point this out to many people who are basing their vote on this issue, and most often are just ignored. There is no “100%” pro-life candidate – not even Ryan can be considered 100% pro-life or else he wouldn’t back someone who isn’t.

Sadly I think too many of us, whom abortion and contraceptives are an important issue, forget that legality doesn’t matter if we’re not trying to fix the societal issues that make people choose those routes to begin with. If the driving motivations are still there it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal or not, people will find a way to get what they need to fix their problems. I often think that backing a “pro-life” candidate is useless unless they also are working for better education, health care and adoption access.

I was hoping to come late to a good discussion so I could see the answers to your question, because I also find it puzzling. More and more I am coming to think that we are wasting precious time, energy and resources beating at these issues on a political stage when they must be dealt with by fundamentally changing the way our culture views the human person, and that can only be done under the radar, over the course of generations. But I’m often swayed by conservative arguments, so I’m really interested in hearing the answer…

I’ve start using “I don’t care if it’s illegal, I want it to be unnecessary” as my slogan. I often cringe at the time and money that used beating these issues into the political ground, that could be used to fund adoption processes, job training, college grants, childcare subsidies, {real} healthcare and birthing centers, etc.

I can’t remember the exact quote from The Screwtape Letters, but I do know there was an entire chapter dedicated to the tactic of distraction.

This is what bothers me most: “People who want to have contraceptive health insurance can choose that in their policy. Those that don’t have — that choose not to can buy a policy with or without. It depends on the kind of policy you buy of course.”

This to me is in the same vein as his comment about borrowing money from your parents to pay for college. He doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not that simple for everyone to just buy a different health insurance policy. 1) Most people have insurance through their employer, and getting a job is not that easy, so you can’t just up and get another one if their insurance doesn’t cover everything you want, and 2) if you’re trying to get insurance outside of your employer, you could be denied because of pre-existing conditions — well, if Obamacare is repealed, which Romney wants to do. It’s infuriating to me when Romney speaks from a position of privilege that shows how out-of-touch he is with so much of the country.

Unfortunately for Catholics this election is more than just about abortion. We also have marriage to defend. So while Romney likes to swing both ways on the abortion fence, he has made his stance on marriage pretty clear. That’s why he gets my vote.

I think you raise an important point. Romney is far more moderate not just on the abortion issue, but on fiscal issues as well. That being said, we now have an administration that is most extreme on both issues and while Romney isn’t perfect it is so important to do everything we can to remove the current president. Ramesh Ponnuru’s book Party of Death discusses political tactics to help reduce abortions. Obviously, abolishing the killing of innocent human life is ideal, but we can probably save some children through laws that require Parental Consent for minors and enforcing Planned PArenthood and other abortion clinics to meet standards required by all medical clinics. It’s amazing to me that women on the other side oppose this, because abortions are a major medical procedure and to advocate that it NOT be regulated seems ridiculous. The other thing Ramesh suggests is letting individual states vote on this. All that is to say, Romney isn’t perfect, but he’s at least moving us in a better direction on this front than the alternative.